Give me a dive bar anytime. Shot-and-beer joints with tattered red stools, ancient jukeboxes, and a clientele that does not include mortgage bankers.

No craft brews on tap, no potted plants in the corner, and no real food, unless you count Slim Jims. Decor? How about the jaw-dropping assortment of stuffed animals at Mountain Rest in West Milford?

Wallpaper? How about the flattened six-pack cartons at McCormick's in New Brunswick, where owner Jack Schobert painted the carpet instead of installing a new floor. Saved him $12,000.

Dives defy description, but you know one when you see one.

What follows is one writer's journey into the heart of divedom, a field trip populated with $1.50 beers; a cast of entertaining if somewhat eccentric characters; a bag of just-made zeppoles; a woman named Chickie and a guy named Vinnie.

Journal Square Pub
50 Journal Square, Jersey City; (201) 216-9632.
It is 3 p.m., and there are seven men, all drinking beer, at the 50-foot-long mahogany bar at the Journal Square Pub. It's nice and dark inside. Not cave-dark, but dark enough where you can drink, and sit, in shadowy silence.

This bar is the ultimate in thirsty-commuter convenience; it's across the street from the Journal Square PATH station. Not to mention next to Boulevard Drinks, New Jersey's most atmospheric hot dog hole-in-the-wall.

The striking pink neon clock halfway up the impossibly high ceiling came from the Tube Bar, once across the street. On tap: Yuengling (the biggest seller), plus Bud, Bud Light, Genny Cream and Bass. Upstairs is a room with a pool table; downstairs is the Parmigiana House, a casual Italian restaurant popular with local office workers.

"At night, we get a good crowd," said owner Tony Barone, a World War II vet.

"Middle-aged, no young kids. We don't want that kind of stuff. It's a mature crowd."

Mary Ann's
Route 537 and Muhlenbrink Road, Colts Neck; (732) 389-0561.
This screen-doored roadside dive is run by the unflappable Chickie Widger, who seems determined not to crack a smile.

"Do you sell them?" asks her visitor, spotting a huge bag of zeppoles on the wrap-around bar.
"We eat them," replies Widger, with just the hint of a smile.

The bar opened in 1954; Mary Ann was the first name of one of the original owners. On tap: Coors, Bud, Miller Lite. The cash register belongs in a museum, the stools need re-upholstering, and a fish scale hangs in a corner.

The thin-crust pizza's supposed to be pretty good. The other person at the bar is Wade, a regular, who calls Maryann's his "sanity place." He turns down the offer of free zeppoles.
"I just had heart surgery," Wade says. "I have to give up a couple vices; I'm not giving up beer."
When her visitor suggests Mary Ann's doesn't look like the kind of place one would associate with McMansioned Colts Neck, the owner has a ready answer.

"We were here before them," Chickie says.

She is not smiling.

McCormick's Irish Pub
266 Somerset St., New Brunswick; (732) 247-7822.
The most important thing you need to know about McCormick's?

Jack is back!

Jack Schobert -- the bar is named after his grandfather -- recently returned from Florida to renovate and manage the bar. There's one pool table, a fish tank by the back steps, and a poster for the '70s movie "Black Mama, White Mama" ("Chicks in Chains!"). And that funky six-pack-carton wallpaper.

"Yes, we're a dive," Schobert says proudly.

A dive with an un-dive-like beer selection -- 20 brews on tap -- but a dive nevertheless. The men's room is wedged into a narrow space at the end of the bar, and there's a tiny look-in kitchen; Schobert is bringing food -- burgers, pizza, even alligator tail -- back to McCormick's, which turns 21 this year.

If it's your birthday, you and three friends get a free bottle of champagne.
On Sundays, Schobert's sister, Lori Shymko, serves Irish coffee and homemade pastries. On the 17th of every month, all Irish beer is half price.

A faded sign behind the bar reads:

No checks
No loans
No tabs
No mooching
No hassling the ladies
Be cool or be gone

Tom's Tavern
85 Asbury Road, Farmingdale; (732) 938-9060.
"Die," regular Karl Newman says, pointing to plaques on the bar at Tom's, "and you get your name on the bar."

He's not kidding; long-time customers at this weather-beaten, white-shingled house get their names on fancy nameplates at the bar. Others get their photos taped on what Newman calls "the dead man's wall."

You don't need a sense of humor to appreciate a dive, but it helps.

Need a beer? Yelling "Sue!" usually works; there are three bartenders named Sue. Call this a dive with heart; regulars are always taking up donations for someone in need. When the floor needed to be replaced, customers did the job, for free. Want to donate to the Thanksgiving food drive? Toss your money into the empty Coors Light 24-pack.

Free food is put out several nights a week: sausage and peppers, chili, chicken, stew and Sue Ellis's "famous" deviled eggs. On tap: Bud, Yuengling, Miller Lite and Coors Light. The bar is named after Tom Guinee, who died last year; his wife, Josephine, also recently passed away

The bar's future is in doubt. "Nobody's going to buy this place and keep it," regular Steve Jones says. "They'll sell it and take the liquor license somewhere else."

The decor: a dozen stools, a photo of Ali standing triumphant over Liston, an imposing mahogany bar and absolutely the biggest urinal in New Jersey (big enough for two, easy). On tap: Miller Genuine Draft, Bud and Bud Light.

In the early 1900s, the building served as a general store. Emilio Rea, Sammy's father, turned it into a bar in 1933, according to Bob Flynn, the current owner.

When Sammy -- who owned the place after his father, and now tends the bar -- buys you a drink, he's really buying you a drink; he takes it out of his tip money. One Sammy rule: dollar bills must be put face-up in the register.

Who's running the place, anyway?

The menu, such as it is, includes sausage and peppers, meat loaf, and Sammy's take on pasta fagioli, with kielbasa.

"It's a working man's-and-woman's shot-and-a-beer kind of place," Dave Tarantino, a regular, said. "Where your average person goes after work to unwind."

Mountain Rest
17 Wooley Road, West Milford; (973) 697-9751.
There may not be a crazier, or more charming, dive bar anywhere.

Mountain Rest is open Thursdays to Sundays only, which is probably a good thing because repeated exposure to the stuffed animals on the wall may lead to dreams of antlered bartenders, or Bud Light-swilling Bambis.

Throw in the mismatched furniture (picnic tables, booths, yard-sale-vintage chairs); the sunglasses-wearing deer head; and assorted moose, birds and squirrels, and it's the Bates Motel meets Silence of the Lambs.

There's just one TV, which seems one too many. On tap: Sam Adams, Yuengling Black and Tan, Blue Moon and Michelob Amber Bock.

If you need fresh air, or are convinced the moose head has been staring at you, or your girlfriend, head outside, to the spacious deck.

"You might be a redneck," reads one sign, "if you can entertain yourself more than an hour with a fly swatter."

Pepe's Lounge
392 N. Main St., Wharton. No phone.

Look up the term "shot and beer bar" in the dictionary and you'll find a picture of Pepe's. One pool table, torn chairs, faded sign and lively conversation add to its low-rent charm.
"I dropped my teeth," the guy next to me says to no one in particular.

"You can't pick on handsome," says one boozy regular, defending the bartender. "You have to go through me."

Another guy does play-by-play of the pool table action. A customer's dog -- big, black and quite friendly -- sidles over for another pat on the head.

"This is not a museum," says Vin Henrich. "Drink or stay the hell home."

The Harrison Avenue Tavern -- a k a, the "Hat" -- violates Dive Bar Rule No. 2 (no potted plants) but the plants in question are outside, on the patio, so it's OK. The patio's a trip -- lawn chairs, sand chairs and a swing are scattered around the asphalt, with strategically placed buckets for cigarette butts.

Inside, in a corner, is a 45-pound piece of steel salvaged from the World Trade Center debris. Henrich, who says he's in financial planning ("we'll leave it at that") says he throws the best St. Patrick's Day party on the East Coast -- last year, he gave away 1,500 pounds of corned beef.
If it's Tuesday, it must be $6-for-60-ounce-pitcher night. Friday means a free buffet from 4-7 p.m. Sunday; free wings during NFL games.

The bar was Giblin's from 1935 to 1975, then the Torn Hat, now simply the Hat.
"I got the riffraff out of the place," Henrich says proudly.

What if anyone walked in and suggested he fix the place up a bit?

"If you don't like it, there are a thousand other places to go to," he replies. "Beat it."